Nepean and polling firm Opinium undertook a nationally representative survey of 2,000 UK voters. By questioning them on excerpts of Trump’s inauguration speech, adapted for the UK, we aimed to explore how far (or not) UK cultural and political attitudes are from the US, especially once you remove the link between a given policy and President Trump.

Gavin Davis, Managing Partner at Nepean: “Whether you like Trump or not, this research shows the danger of simply dismissing many of his policies out of hand. Politicians and businesses need to dig deeper into what is actually going on during this moment of change. We might be closer to the US than we think or would like to believe.” James Crouch, Head of Policy and Public Affairs Research at Opinium: “While Trump’s policies are rightly scrutinised, it’s his mastery of narrative and storytelling that stands out – the polling suggests British politicians could benefit from taking a page from his playbook when advancing their own policy agenda.” For the full report, all the statements polled and the complete data sets (with voter, age, income and regional demographic breakdown), please email Woolf Thomson Jones: wthomsonjones@nepean.co.uk

Trump Policies

Over 50% support among voters for policies like “declaring a national emergency in the Channel” (58%), “filling up our gas reserves and exporting British energy all over the world” (55%), and “forging a merit-based, colour-blind society” (53%).

While Conservative and Reform voters overwhelmingly backed the policies, there was also majority support from Labour voters too, as well as for “overhauling our trade system to protect UK workers” – one of Trump’s key tariff policies.

Declaring “a national emergency in the Channel and [beginning] the process of returning thousands and thousands of criminal migrants back to the places they came from” had majority support from Labour (50%), Conservative (76%) and Reform (76%) voters. It also had net support in every age group and region.

Meanwhile, “ending Net Zero”, “there are only two genders”, and “removing support for electric vehicles” found the lowest support.

Trump on the Crumbling State

Trump’s criticism of the current state of the nation resonated strongly in the UK, with majority support for criticism of the healthcare system, failure to protect citizens, and trust in government.

The statement “our country can no longer deliver basic services… we have a healthcare system that does not deliver yet costs more than any other in the world” was over 60% supported by nearly every voter type, only Labour voters came in below (57%).

Trumpian Values

Trump’s broader values and optimistic pitch for the future of the country, had strong support with UK voters, notably with statements on prosperity for all regardless of background (63%), hope for future generations (61%), and a “revolution of common sense” (58%).

All voter types, other than Green voters (48%), overwhelmingly support (over 65%) the statement we should “once again be a growing nation”.